


The Day After

by Luthien



Series: Plain Jane [2]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Marriage, Socks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-28
Updated: 2013-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-06 18:37:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 22,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/738841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luthien/pseuds/Luthien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's just another day in the Gold household. Almost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Morning

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Nym for the beta, and to the Usual Suspects for audiencing.

Jane sleeps uneasily, and half-awakens more than once in the night. She tosses and turns and whimpers, aware of the pain but not quite able to rouse herself sufficiently to do something about it. She drifts through dreams that tangle with memory: a figure standing in a doorway, and then eyes on her, constantly, refusing to leave her alone. She shifts against the sheet, wriggling to try to find a more comfortable position, and her foot slips out of its nest of pillows and lands on the mattress with a thump.

Jane gasps at the sudden sharp pain. By the time she lets the air out of her lungs in a long, shuddering breath, her eyes are wide open and she's far more awake than she wants to be. It's still dark. She reaches over to the desk and feels around for the switch on the lamp. The sudden flood of light leaves her squinting. Her glasses are over there somewhere, too. She reaches for them, half-blind, but her hand brushes against something else, something cool and smooth to the touch. Frowning, Jane peers closer, and then she just feels like closing her eyes all over again: there's a glass of water sitting there with a strip of tablets beside it. Her husband's painkillers.

Maybe those dreams of being watched were a bit more than dreams, or even memories. Jane's not exactly thrilled at the thought of being watched while she sleeps, and the idea of her husband being the one doing the watching doesn't make it any better. She's still looking at the painkillers, though. It was a kind thought, to leave them for her.

She'd thought that morning would clear some of the confusion she'd felt last night, that she'd wake up and find that things were back to normal. The presence of the painkillers says otherwise. Still, she swallows one down in a mouthful of water, switches off the lamp, and carefully, _carefully_ lifts her foot back up amongst the pillows. Then she snuggles down under the covers. She closes her eyes, and tries to will herself back to sleep, though she doesn't expect that she'll succeed. Perhaps the painkiller _will_ dull the pain and allow her to rest, though her husband always seems to be able to keep functioning as usual after he takes one, or even two.

When Jane opens her eyes, after what can surely only be a moment or two, it's no longer dark. The room is dim, with pale morning light silhouetting the edges of the blind, but it's enough for Jane to be able to see. This time, she finds her glasses as soon as she reaches for them, and lets out a little sigh of relief as her surroundings come sharply into focus. She grabs her watch from the desktop and checks the time: it's not quite 6.30. Still early.

She pulls back the covers to take a look at her ankle. It's swollen up and turned an even more impressive shade of purple that it was last night, but the pain has subsided to a dull ache. She's not going to chance putting any weight on it for the moment, though. She swings her legs out of bed, taking care that her right foot doesn't touch the floor, and then grips the edge of the desk tightly as she rises and stands.

Hopping across the room is just as awkward as it was last night. Jane hopes that she becomes more adept at it with practice – or, even better, her ankle heals up in record time and she can walk again before she has a chance to become any good at hopping.

There's no other sign of life downstairs when she pokes her head around the study door and looks out into the hallway. She feels… not disappointed, but it's almost a bit of a let-down. She was expecting to hear her husband moving around down here, she realises – almost as much as she was hoping not to see him.

She hops along the hallway to the downstairs bathroom, and still nothing stirs in the house apart from herself. She uses the toilet, then pauses at the sink after she washes her hands. She's not a vain woman, no one could accuse her of that, but as she looks at her reflection in the bathroom mirror it's impossible not to notice that her hair is a mess. Jane usually – always – wears her hair up during the day, and every night, right before she goes to bed, she takes out the hairpins and pulls it into a neat, loose braid that keeps it out of the way while she sleeps.

She didn't do that last night. She didn't give her hair a second thought after she… dispensed with the hairpins in front of the mirror in the hallway. And now she's facing the consequences. Her hair looks like a rat's nest, the strands so long and thick that they fall all too easily across her face instead of staying where they belong: out of the way and carefully under control.

Jane clenches her fists at her sides – and then grabs wildly for the rim of the sink before she manages to regain her balance. She remains there, panting and wide-eyed and looking at her reflection for far longer than she intends or wants. She desperately needs her brush. And her hairpins. And… too much else. The relief she feels when she finally makes herself turn away from the mirror and hop to the bathroom door is out of all proportion.

She's halfway back to her makeshift bedroom when she finally hears a noise that she doesn't make herself. She freezes, one palm pressed hard against the wall to steady herself. She can hear noises coming from the kitchen, just innocuous little sounds of someone moving around and going about all the small morning tasks: noises that she's sure she hadn't heard earlier. He's come in through the kitchen door. He must have. So when the house was quiet, when she'd first got up, he'd already been and gone.

Gone where? Outside the house, for a moment or two? Or somewhere else, for longer than that?

It's probably best if Jane doesn't ask herself these sorts of things. She knows how her husband reacts to having his movements commented on or questioned. Well, no, that's no longer completely true. She _knew_ how her husband reacted, up until yesterday. The possible reactions of the man who left those painkillers for her during the night are something else again.

Jane's eyes rest on the study door. She could go back there, for a while, and pretend that she's not hiding. Or… She looks down the hallway to the dining room door. It's open, and probably the door beyond, the one between the dining room and the kitchen, is open, too. If she hops down the hallway and in through the dining room, her husband is bound to hear her foot thumping against the floor long before she arrives in the kitchen.

But if she goes back to bed now, he'll still hear her when she comes down the hallway later. If she goes back to bed now, she'll just be putting off having to see him and talk to him. If she were brave, she would get it over and done with.

Jane goes back to bed. Just for a little while.

Lying in bed proves to be extremely boring, now that she has no chance of getting any more sleep and with all the books she's currently reading stuck upstairs next to her own bed, where she can't get to them. After about twenty minutes of lying there, taking mental inventory of the items in the nearest glass cabinet while she listens for possible sounds outside her door, Jane gives up and gets out of bed again.

She's just going to have to be brave.

As she makes her way down the hallway, Jane misses her warm, woolly dressing gown. It's one thing her husband didn't think to supply last night, though of course she hadn't really needed it then. Right now, she's very aware of her bare foot poking out beneath the hem of her nightdress, and not just because there's always a slight chill in this draughty old house regardless of whether the heat's been turned on or not.

When Jane gets to the dining room, she's assailed with the smell of cooking bacon, and she's suddenly ravenously hungry. Yesterday was a busy day at work, and she'd grabbed half a sandwich at her desk at lunchtime, intending to have a proper meal at home last night. But then last night had happened, and dinner had ended up being not much more than a glass of wine and half a bowl of soup.

Her husband doesn't usually cook bacon, any more than he usually re-heats soup.

Jane stops in the kitchen doorway. Her husband is standing in front of the counter beneath the window, with his back to her. He's in his shirtsleeves and waistcoat, his suit jacket hanging over the back of a chair at the kitchen table, and he's pouring water from the kettle into the teapot. He doesn't turn around. On the stovetop, between her husband and the door, there are several pans. In one, there seems to be a lot of bacon; it's sizzling and popping loudly.

Her husband hasn't heard her approach.

Jane would like to stay where she is indefinitely, just as she'd like her husband to stay at the counter with his back to her indefinitely, but she knows that's not going to happen. Standing on one foot like this for long isn't easy, even clutching the doorframe for support.

She clears her throat. "Good morning," she says.

Her husband goes perfectly still.

Jane swallows again, waiting, and then, at last, he turns around.

"Good morning," he says. He very nearly smiles at her, a small, uncertain twitch of the lips that looks completely out of place on his face. He should be frowning, if he's paying her attention at all. That's how he usually greets her of a morning. "You're up early."

"Not all that early," Jane says. As soon as the words leave her mouth, she's wondering why she's starting the day by disagreeing with him. She knows all too well that disagreeing with her husband is never a good idea if she's not in the mood to hear about all the ways in which she is so very wrong. "I didn't sleep very well," she adds quickly.

_That_ makes him frown. "Are you in much pain?" he asks, sounding concerned. "I left some painkillers for you."

_And watched me while I was sleeping,_ Jane thinks, with a little flash of unaccustomed annoyance. "Yes," she says shortly, and lets go of the doorframe so that she can hop the short distance to the kitchen table.

Her husband is there before her, holding out a chair for her. How does he _move_ like that? It shouldn't be possible for a man with a crippled leg, and yet he keeps managing it. Strange as his actions are, in more ways than one, she's grateful for the help. Even a simple act like pulling a chair out from a table is that much harder when you've only got one leg to stand upon.

Jane takes the hand that he holds out for her, and grips it tightly as she lowers herself into the chair.

"Thank you," she says once she's settled in the chair, and smiles up at him quickly before she has a chance to think twice about doing it. "And thank you for the painkiller. It helped."

"It's nothing," he mutters. He doesn't smile back, but instead turns away abruptly and goes back to the stove, where he gives the pans his undivided attention. It's almost as though Jane isn't even in the room.

He reaches into the bowl by his elbow for an egg, cracks it against the rim in a single, precise movement, and drops yoke and white into one of the other pans. Then he breaks another egg, and sets it to frying with the same effortless skill as he displayed the first time. He has the air of a man who's so practised at what he's doing that he doesn't have to think once about it, let alone twice.

But when did he practise? That's the question. Her husband generally has a cup of tea first thing in the morning, and then stops for breakfast at the diner, if he bothers with breakfast at all. That's been his custom for… well, for as long as Jane can remember. She shakes her head slowly. It doesn't matter how long he's followed his daily routine; it just matters that cooking breakfast is yet another thing she's never known her husband to do before today – before last night.

Regardless of the why of it all, the smell of the bacon is still making Jane's mouth water, and she feels hungrier than ever. She bites her lip. She doesn't think she's up to standing at the counter on one leg even for as long as it takes to prepare the simplest of breakfasts, and then there's the whole question of getting the food back to the table. Maybe, once her husband has finished eating his bacon and eggs, he'll be willing to at least get her some coffee. If she asks.

If she can bring herself to ask.

Jane sits at the table in increasingly awkward silence while her husband continues to cook and continues to ignore her. The kitchen's warmer than the rest of the house, thanks to the heat from the stove, and yet Jane feels cold. Goosebumps prickle along her arms, but worst are her feet, which are freezing against the polished wooden floor. She closes her fingers over the loose cuffs of her nightgown and tucks her feet in under the hem of her nightgown, trying to warm up.

She feels like a little girl, huddled in her too-large nightie, minus a dressing gown or slippers, and with fly-away hair, waiting for her presence to be remembered.

All of a sudden there's a click as her husband turns off the heat, and then he's serving up the bacon and eggs onto the plate that's waiting on the counter.

It would be best not to be looking at him when he turns around. It would be wise to fix her gaze on anything else in the room, and try to pretend a nonchalance that she cannot feel.

It seems that she's not wise, though, because he turns around to face her and their eyes meet. He looks just like he always does, dressed in his neat, hand-tailored suit and with his gold-handled cane resting against the counter at his side —except that there's an expression on his face that doesn't belong there, a look that simply doesn't fit the man he's always been. Just like last night, Jane's not sure what to make of the emotion that his eyes can't quite hide but, whatever it is, it's far from the cool detachment she's always seen there before when he's looked at her.

Jane's all too aware of how she must look to him, even more self-conscious than she was a moment ago, and yet somehow she no longer feels like a little girl. And she no longer feels cold.

She looks down at the table top, then over at the door, and at the window, while the colour mounts in her cheeks. She's still gazing fixedly out the window when he comes over to the table and sets the plate of bacon and eggs before her. She looks up at him in surprise, and then quickly down at the plate.

"This is for me?" she says. "I don't-"

"I was planning to bring you breakfast in bed," he says, "but you beat me to it."

"Oh," she says. That explains his overlooking the minor detail of fetching her dressing gown and slippers from upstairs, but it still doesn't explain the food – food that she's never been known to eat for breakfast before. There's an awful lot of bacon on her plate, plus the two perfectly fried eggs, sunny side up. "Aren't you having any?"

"No, no. This is for you."

He turns away again, and takes a few halting steps back to the counter. When he returns with the teapot and two porcelain mugs, Jane doesn't know what to think. She doesn't drink tea, and her husband knows she doesn't drink tea. How can he have forgotten? She watches in silence as he pours the tea, and places one of the mugs by her plate.

He seats himself in the chair opposite Jane, and watches her over the rim of his mug as he sips his tea.

Jane looks down at her breakfast, more self-conscious than ever. The eggs and bacon glisten against the plain white porcelain of the plate. She forces herself to look up again, to stop herself from trying to hide.

"Thank you," she says, nodding towards the plate, "but why?"

"You needed to eat," he says gruffly, and takes another sip of his tea. He sets down his mug. "You _need_ to eat," he adds. He hasn't missed that she's yet to take a bite.

"Yes, but _why_?" she repeats. "You don't… I don't… I can't remember the last time either of us cooked breakfast, or ate anything like this."

"A husband can't choose to look after his wife?" he asks, sounding almost playful.

Jane can't tell from his tone whether he means for the question to be rhetorical or not – so she goes with not, and answers: " _My_ husband's never chosen to do such a thing before."

She might almost have struck him. He flinches, all but jumping back from the table in his chair, and his fingers clench against the table top.

"My wife's never been injured before," he points out, his voice harsher, but the retort comes several seconds too late to be properly effective.

Jane bites her lip. She doesn't know why they seem to end up at odds with each other every time they exchange more than a dozen words, but she's getting tired of it – and so, she thinks, is her husband. The unhappy, frustrated look on his face is a perfect match for how she feels.

Jane pushes out her chair and leans against the edge of the table, wincing slightly as she hauls herself up onto her foot.

Before she can even think about taking a step, her husband is getting up from his chair.

"Please," he says, and swallows hard. "Please don't go. Not just yet."

Jane's eyes widen in surprise. He's frowning, still, and he sounds _desperate_.

"Stay and eat. Please. You need a proper meal." He holds out a hand to her, entreating her.

Jane stares at him. She has no idea of what to say. She doesn't know this man. He looks like her husband, but he's _not_. It's not just that he's concerned about her, either, though that alone would be more than enough to make her stare. No, the truly different thing, the shocking thing, is that he's letting himself be vulnerable before her. And it's not as if it's something he wants to do, either. She can tell that this is not like any of his carefully thought-out plans, or even any of the seemingly casual put-downs with which he usually silences her. It's as if he has no choice but to care, and to let her see that he cares, to open himself to the possibility that she might say something that will … well, something that will make him flinch. It's as if all of it, her reactions and their arguments, quite as much as the looks she keeps surprising on his face, are more spontaneous, more _real_ , than anything that's ever been between them.

Jane shakes her head, as frustrated with herself as she is with her husband and this whole situation, this whole… marriage. How can anything be more real than the life they've lived together for… how long has it been?

It hardly matters. It doesn't matter.

Except that it does matter.

"I'm just going to make some coffee," she says, and tries to smile. It feels more like a grimace.

"The tea…" her husband says.

"You know I don't like tea," she points out. " _You_ like tea."

"I thought…" He sighs, and quirks a slightly self-deprecating half-smile. "I thought you might like some tea this morning."

"You know I don't like tea," Jane says again, confused, and not just because he should know better than to think that she'll magically become a tea-drinker simply because he pours her a cup. That almost-smile is disarming, and it's an oddly attractive look on him.

She bites her lip, vaguely horrified at the direction her thoughts are taking. She shouldn't be thinking him attractive. She never has before. That's not part of what they are to each other.

"I do know," he says.

Jane blinks. It takes her a second or two to remember what they're talking about. Tea. That's right. She shifts awkwardly in place, turning on her one good foot so that she can hop over to the counter.

"Sit down," her husband urges, coming around the table to her side. "Sit and eat. I'll make the coffee."

She shouldn't let him do it. She should make the coffee herself. But she's already finding it taxing to stand here on one leg. How much harder will it be to stand by the counter as she measures out the coffee and pours the water into the machine? How much harder will it be to carry her coffee mug from the counter to the table without spilling any?

"All right," Jane says, and braces a hand against the table as she lowers herself back into her chair.

Her husband is hovering close by, but he doesn't try to touch her. He's just there. Just in case. He doesn't move until Jane's properly settled at the table.

Jane watches as her husband gets out the coffee and turns on the coffeemaker. If anything, he looks even more at home making coffee than he does cracking eggs – neither of which he will be doing tomorrow morning, she reminds herself sternly. Tomorrow she'll see to her own breakfast – but right now she'll allow herself to be looked after. Her husband's already prepared almost everything, anyway, so letting him get her a cup of coffee hardly makes much difference. Hardly at all.

She takes up her knife and fork, and cuts through the centre of one of the fried eggs. She watches as the yolk spills out onto the plate, and mingles with the bacon. She pokes at a piece of bacon, pushing it around the plate and leaving a trail of yellow smears behind it.

On the other side of the kitchen, the coffeemaker gurgles and burbles and the smell of coffee, strong, wonderful coffee, starts to eclipse the smell of bacon in the air.

Jane still hasn't so much as tasted anything on the plate by the time her husband sets down a mug of coffee before her. She snatches it up, and takes a sip. The coffee's just as she usually takes it, with neither cream nor sugar, and it's so hot that it burns her tongue. She appreciates the familiarity of that and the strong, bitter taste of the coffee. It feels normal.

Normal, but somehow not quite right.

"Thank you," she says to her husband, a trifle belatedly, relieved to be able to take refuge in the small courtesy. She doesn't want to dwell on what may or may not be right. Or real. Or normal.

"It's fine," her husband mutters as he picks up her other mug, the one with the tea in it, and takes it back to the other side of the kitchen. He tips the contents down the sink.

Jane, unaccountably, feels bad about that.

Her husband turns on the water, rinsing out the mug, and goes to retrieve the cooking pans from the stovetop. He's going to do the dishes, without having eaten a thing. Somehow, that makes Jane feel even worse.

"Aren't you going to at least finish your tea before you start cleaning up?" she asks, raising her voice slightly. His mug is sitting on the table still, apparently forgotten. Or abandoned.

Her husband shuts off the water, and turns around to face her. His expression is sombre.

"It doesn't matter," he says.

"You always have a cup of tea of a morning," she reminds him – as if he needs reminding.

"That's true," he says, but he doesn't move away from the sink.

"I… I'd appreciate the company," she says, only realising that it's the truth as she says the words. "I have a lot of breakfast to get through."

"You do, at that," he says. "Very well."

He gathers up the other pan, and the spatula, and a knife, and dumps them in the sink, then stops to reposition the teapot and the coffeemaker in their corner at the end of the counter before tossing the broken eggshells in the bin. And _then_ he stops to hang the dishcloth over the rack in front of the over door, and smooth it out just so.

Jane is beginning to wonder if she should say again that she'd appreciate his company, but before she can say anything her husband finally comes back to the table. He takes the chair opposite her again, and immediately picks up his mug to sip his tea. Jane follows suit, and drinks some of her coffee. It's no longer hot enough to burn her tongue. Her husband's tea has been sitting there even longer. It must be growing cold, and yet he drinks it with every sign of enjoyment.

And, of course, if his mouth is engaged in drinking tea, he doesn't have to make the effort to talk to his dull little wife.

Jane could always say something herself.

She takes another sip of coffee, and watches from behind her mug as her husband takes another sip of tea. At this rate, they're going to run out of their respective beverages long before she runs out of bacon and eggs. She still hasn't had a mouthful of anything on her plate.

"I thought you wanted company while you ate," her husband observes, setting down his mug.

"I did. I _do_ ," Jane assures him. She spears a small piece of bacon with her fork, and brings it to her mouth. It's not too bad, considering it's not nearly as hot as when it was first set before her. "It's good," she says.

She doesn't mean to sound surprised, but enough of it colours her words that her husband gives her another of those small, self-deprecating smiles. "I have many hidden talents," he tells her.

Warmth floods Jane's cheeks and she looks down quickly at her plate. Did he really just…? No, of course he didn't. He's her husband and, more than that, he's _Mr Gold_. If Mr Gold ever tried to flirt with anyone the world would probably come to an end.

When she dares to look up again, her husband is clutching his mug in both hands and somehow he manages to be looking everywhere but at her.

Jane returns her attention to her food. The eggs prove to be just as well-cooked as the bacon. They'd go even better with some toast to soak up some of the egg yolk, as she used to do when she was… As someone she knew used to...

She can't remember. It doesn't matter.

She usually has toast with her breakfast coffee. She wonders why her husband didn't think to make some toast as well. Not that she's being greedy, or expecting to be waited on hand and foot. Toast is simply the obvious accompaniment to eggs and bacon.

Jane pushes another bit of bacon across her plate and only just stops herself from asking her husband why he seems to have made a point of avoiding – or attempting to avoid – preparing the toast and coffee that she has for breakfast every day. It's not as though he isn't well aware of her eating habits.

She looks up again, and surprises her husband in the act of watching her. He brings his mug of tea to his lips, but this time he doesn't try to hide behind it; he's still watching her over the rim as he drinks.

Jane looks back at him, though every instinct is telling her to look away, to hide herself away, and not to provide him with an easy target for the barbed comments that are never far away.

She clears her throat. "Do you have anything in particular planned for today?" she asks. It's odd, consciously trying to make small-talk with her own husband. It seems as if all of their conversations have been small up until now. She's never had to work at it before.

A small frown creases her husband's brow. "The shop won't be open, of course," he says, as though that should be obvious, "but I will need to leave the house for a short while this morning."

Jane frowns back at him, and her frown is in earnest. "I'm sorry… What?"

"Of course I will be staying here today to look after you," he says calmly, as though what he's suggesting is nothing out of the ordinary. His expression is sharp-eyed and watchful, though – that, at least, is something she's seen before. He knows there's nothing 'of course' about his taking care of her, but he's daring her to dispute it.

"There's no need-" Jane begins.

"There's _every_ need," he interrupts. "You require assistance to get about, and you need someone to fetch and carry for you. Of course that someone should be your husband."

"There's no need," Jane repeats steadily, "because I won't be here today. I'm going to work, as usual."

"My dear, I don't-"

"I do," Jane says, his use of the dreaded endearment providing just enough impetus for her to dare to interrupt in turn. "I have responsibilities, and commitments. I can just as easily sit in a chair at work and carry out my duties as sit in a chair at home and read a book."

"I doubt it would be quite as easy as you expect," her husband murmurs. His voice is still even, everything that is calm and reasonable, but his fingers curl around the handle of the cane propped up against the edge of the table. "In any case, Miss Boyd can easily hold down the fort for one day – or more."

"No, she can't!" Jane exclaims, and drops her fork onto her plate with a clatter. "Apart from the fact that she's an assistant and not a librarian, she's much more in need of sitting at home with her feet up than I am. I've just sprained my ankle – she could give birth at any moment."

"In which case, she shouldn't be at work at all – and yet she is."

"You know she needs the money," Jane says quietly.

"Oh, I know," her husband says, and there's a flash of something in his eyes then, something hard and uncompromising, that is so very much a part of the husband Jane's always known. "But we were talking about you, my dear, not Miss Boyd," he adds, and in an instant he's back to sounding calm and reasonable – almost bland. Too bland.

"I'm going to work today," Jane says.

She waits for him to make some comment about her being too conscientious, to mock her for not wanting to let anyone down. Instead, he sips his tea again, letting it roll around in his mouth for a moment and taking his time to savour the flavour before swallowing. He sets the mug back down on the table.

"Well then," he says, pushing back his chair. "I'd better go and fetch you some clothes, and anything else you'll need to get yourself ready." He gets to his feet.

"Um," Jane says, staring up at him. "Um... what?"

"I'm not going to fight you on this, my dear," her husband says, his expression once again unfathomable. "If you truly wish to go to work today, then go. I'll drive you there myself."

Jane blinks, not sure whether being irritated at being "my deared" three times in quick succession outweighs her surprise that she won the argument so easily. Or that she won it at all.

"I… Thank you," she says, at a loss for what else to say.

"Go and have a shower – if you wish," her husband suggests. "I'll get your things."

He comes around the end of the table and holds out his hand for her to take. There seems to be no option but to take it, so Jane does. Getting up is easier this time, now she's had some practice at doing it. She tries hard to ignore the little voice in her head that points out that it's becoming easier with _help_ , and that she won't have help getting into and out of her chair at work today. She can hardly rely on Ashley, and there's no one else.

Her husband lets go of her hand as soon as she's standing, but only so that he can take her arm. He accompanies her across the kitchen, and through the dining room and out into the hallway. As before, his presence isn't obtrusive, exactly. He's just… there.

"I can manage the rest of the way by myself," Jane says.

"I'm sure you can," he agrees, but he makes no move to leave her. Jane turns towards the downstairs bathroom, and he turns too. Jane sighs inwardly, but concedes that he has every right to walk this way right now if he chooses to. It's his home – even if it's her home too. They're silent as they make their way down the hallway. Jane doesn't remember the last time she walked like this on her husband's arm in a long, stately procession – well, it's stately if you ignore the fact that it's just the two of them, and that they're both limping to a greater or lesser extent. Jane's not sure that they've _ever_ done this, not even at their wedding. But then, that was at City Hall. There wasn't an aisle to walk down. As with so many aspects of their marriage, Jane finds herself thinking that the lack of an aisle on their wedding day, and of anything much apart from the ceremony itself, was probably just as well. She's always believed in starting as you mean to go on.

They stop in front of the bathroom door, and her husband finally releases his hold on her.

"Call out if you find you need assistance – or anything," he adds hastily, and leans forward to open the door before Jane can work out if she's imagining the slight flare of colour at his cheeks.

"I will," Jane says, choosing to take his words at face value. He hadn't really just flushed or blushed or… had he? At the thought of coming in to assist her while she's taking a shower? It hardly seems likely. Her body, clothed or naked, has never seemed to bother him much at all in any way. Half the time, it doesn't seem to register with him that she even _has_ a body, or that she's anything beyond a minor presence in the house, one that's easily overlooked whenever he has something more important to attend to. Which is most of the time.

Or it _was_ most of the time. Until last night.

Her husband steps back from the door and nods curtly. Then he turns and heads back down the hallway at a much faster pace than a moment ago, when he was encumbered by Jane and her ankle.

Self-conscious of her awkwardness all over again, Jane hops into the bathroom. She grabs hold of the edge of the sink to steady herself, which means that she spots the towels immediately. They're folded neatly over the wall rail: a bath sheet that's large enough for Jane to get lost in, two slightly smaller towels – one for her hair, and the other maybe just to provide her with a choice? – a couple of hand towels and a washcloth. Below the rail sits a three-legged wooden stool that, like the towels, definitely wasn't there when Jane was last in here before breakfast.

Jane bites her lip. Start as you mean to go on: that's what she's always believed in. That's what she's reminded herself whenever things have started looking particularly dull and grey and grim.

But a marriage is a partnership, even Jane's marriage. So what happens when the other partner suddenly decides not to go on as they'd begun? What happens when a marriage is no longer quite as lacking as it was?

Jane has no answers to those questions, apart from the obvious answer that right now a shower needs to happen. She slips out of her nightdress, one sleeve at a time, and lets her underwear fall to the floor. She wants to kick it out of the way, but of course kicking's nigh on impossible for her at the moment without sitting down first. Naked, she hops over to the shower. Her toes sink into the plush bath mat spread carefully in front of the shower screen door. The mat is another thing that wasn't here before. Not looking down, Jane opens the frosted glass door – and sighs: sitting in the corner of the shower cubicle is another three-legged stool, the twin of the one outside.

Jane is both touched and irritated. There can be no doubt of the concern her husband feels for her wellbeing. It shows in everything he does for her, as thorough in execution as it was sudden in its onset. But does he really think her sore ankle makes her so incapacitated that she needs to sit down while she showers, like some old woman crippled with arthritis?

Pursing her lips, Jane closes the door behind her, braces her hand against the tiled wall, and turns on the water. This shower is the twin of the one in Jane's bathroom upstairs. It's easy to imagine that that's where she is now, that she's getting ready for the working day ahead, that today is exactly like every other day. Of course, that little half-fantasy only lasts as long as she stays standing in one place. The illusion is shattered as soon as she moves, and almost slips right over as her one good foot twists in place on the wet tile floor.

She doesn't fall, somehow regaining her balance and slumping against the wall before she can end up in a sprawled heap on the floor. For the first time, she _almost_ wants her husband there at her elbow, ready to catch her. She's relieved that she somehow managed not to cry out when she slipped. The last thing she _actually_ wants is for him to come running – well, limping – to her rescue, and to find out for sure if the sight of her bare skin, even just the hint of it through frosted glass, would be enough to make him blush.

Jane reaches for the shower gel. It's the one she always uses. Lavender. A conventional scent —a boring one. It smells like a little old lady's underwear drawer. She rubs it onto her skin and tries not to focus too much on the smell. Her shampoo and conditioner are also sitting on the glass shelf affixed to the wall inside the shower. They're plain, utilitarian products with a vaguely chemical smell. They don't even have a hint of lavender to liven them up to the point of ordinary dullness.

Jane washes and rinses her hair as quickly as possible. Her left foot is aching from bearing all her weight for even this long. It would be easier to wash her hair sitting down.

She's conscious of the stool, lurking behind her. She doesn't turn around.

A short time later she emerges, dripping, from the shower, inching her way on one foot until her toes sink into the thick, dry bath mat, rather than chancing a hop on the wet tiles. She grabs one of the smaller towels off the rail, and throws it over the nearby stool. And then she sits.

Jane lets out a long breath, a mix of relief and a weariness that she should not be experiencing so early in the day. She's sick and tired of having to rearrange every little routine task of daily life around her hurt ankle and she wishes it would hurry up and fix itself. Of course, it will fix itself. She knows that. _In time._

Her shoulders sag: recent rearrangements to other, larger aspects of her life are more problematic. They're not going to fix themselves just because she waits a while. Jane's not sure that they require fixing, exactly. She's not sure that she wants to go back to the way things were before.

No, that's not true. She _knows_ she doesn't want to go back to the way things were before. The thing she's not sure about is whether she wants to deal with whatever might lie ahead if they continue together along their current path.

It's all too likely that things _will_ go back to the way they were, though – that everything her husband's done since last night is the result of some sort of weird mental aberration, of some switch being flipped inside his head. Jane must make herself ready for the moment when that switch is flipped back again, and his behaviour returns to normal – or, at least, to what it was before. She must make herself ready for the moment when she can no longer expect convenient seats and fresh towels to be laid out for her in the bathroom, for her breakfast to be cooked for her whether she wants it or not, for a steady hand to be there, waiting, to help her up or to catch her should she slip and fall.

Jane clenches her jaw so tightly that her teeth hurt, and her chin wobbles.

She grabs a towel from the rail behind her and starts vigorously drying off her hair. By the time the towel has ended up wrapped around her head in a neat turban, Jane is feeling calmer. She uses the bath sheet to dry herself as thoroughly as possible. The whole process is much quicker when done sitting down than it would be if she'd tried to towel herself dry while standing on one foot.

She supposes she should be grateful for her husband's thoughtfulness in providing her with a place to sit, but she's still feeling a little too out of sorts to want to be quite that reasonable – or to be able to feel comfortable at being in her husband's debt. There's always a price, with him. Everyone in town knows that.

Jane's been paying a price since the day she married him, without ever quite being able to work out what she was supposed to be getting in return. Comfort, security, wealth: she gained all of those things on her marriage, but she doesn't make much use of any of them. Maybe there's room in there for a bathroom stool as well.

Jane snorts, vaguely irritated with herself and the turn her thoughts have taken, yet again. She's been getting positively maudlin with self-pity since she hurt her ankle – though that still doesn't account for her husband's odd behaviour since almost the same moment, since he first saw her reclining on the chaise longue last night.

She shakes her head, trying to clear her thoughts. Frowning, she leans down to retrieve her discarded clothing from the floor, then twists around to grab hold of the towel rail and use it to lever herself up onto her good foot. She runs her free hand lightly along her side and down to her hip. Despite her best efforts, her skin is still not completely dry. If she puts the nightdress back on, the fabric is going to catch and stick against her damp skin. It's not an enticing thought.

Jane ends up wrapping herself in the bath sheet. It's so long and so wide that it wraps right around her a couple of times and covers her completely from her chest to well below her knees. If not for her bare arms and shoulders, she'd be at least as covered up as any of the nuns from the convent. Despite that, she fails to feel properly covered at all. Not that it matters. It's hardly as if anyone is likely to see her moving about in her own house clad only in towels. The only person who might catch sight of her is her husband, but even that's not very likely. He'll be getting ready for work himself by now. And even if he did see her like this, what of it? He's seen her every day for years.

Or, at least, he's _looked at_ her every day for years. Jane doesn't know what he's been seeing.

Jane hops the short distance to the vanity, and clutches the sink with one hand as she squeezes out the toothpaste with the other. She avoids her own gaze in the mirror while she brushes her teeth, and pretends that she's forgotten to put on her glasses. She doesn't have the courage to find out what look is in her eyes right now.

Jane rinses the toothbrush, puts on her glasses and takes a deep breath before she opens the bathroom door and, resting one hand against the side of her head to keep the towel in place, hops out into the hallway.

The hallway is deserted, apart from Jane herself. It's probably just as well.

The hop back along the hallway to the study is getting tediously familiar. Jane's determined not to stop for a rest along the way this time, wanting to get it over and done with as quickly as possible. Of course, that isn't so easy thanks to all of her husband's _things_ taking up space along the sides of the hallway – mostly in those places where she most wants to brace her hand against the wall as she goes. She passes landscapes and portraits arranged on the wall in no particular order, a side table pushed up against the wall and still not properly out of the way, empty picture frames propped up against the wall at such an angle that Jane has to lean over them to rest her hand. There's even a tall walnut plant stand that's never held a plant, obscuring its own part of the wall in turn. Jane smiles tightly as she reaches the black lacquered Chinese cabinet. She knows that there should be only half a dozen more hops to go until she reaches the door of the study – and so there are. The door's ajar and she clutches gratefully at the doorframe, eyes screwed up tight as she heaves a deep breath after the exertion.

"That was quick," says her husband's voice from inside the room.

Jane's eyes fly open and her head whips up so sharply that the crown of her head skims the surface of the door on the way. She pushes the door open the rest of the way and finds her husband halfway across the room, in the act of coming to the door to meet her.

"It's all right," Jane says, shaking her head before he can offer her his arm again. She's still vaguely annoyed about all the things – _his_ things – cluttering up the walls in the hallway and getting in her way. Not to mention the fact that she's found him in here.

She's ready to argue to the point, and to demand to know what he's doing in here, but, to her surprise, he doesn't insist on helping her. Instead, he goes to the desk and pulls out the desk chair. "Sit here," he says.

It's not really a suggestion, and as she hops further into the room Jane sees why: there's nowhere else _to_ sit because the bed is covered in _things_. But not his things this time. Hers.

Jane lowers herself into the chair with a sigh. The throbbing pain in her ankle is rapidly reaching the point where she won't be able to ignore it at all. It's more than time to think about icing her ankle again, except that she's probably going to be late for work as it is without stopping to sit with her foot propped up for another twenty minutes. She glances at the desk top, looking for her watch so that she can check the time, and sees that the strip of painkillers is still there.

Her husband notices her looking. Of course he notices. "Are you in much pain?" he asks at once, taking a step closer so that he's hovering at her elbow again. "You only took one painkiller last time, so even if that was less than four hours ago, you can take another one safely now."

Jane wants to protest, she wants to argue, but her ankle _hurts_ from being jolted around during too many trips up and down the hallway this morning, and pain is clouding every other consideration. She reaches for the strip of painkillers, and swallows one down in a mouthful of water.

"Thank you," she says, because it needs to be said. All of it, everything he's done for her last night and now this morning, it can't all be an elaborate ploy – can it? There's nothing in it for him, to be consistently nice to her like this, to be so solicitous of her wellbeing that it's painful to witness. It's hard to maintain annoyance and irritation in the face of all that, particularly when she knows that his actions – his _current_ actions – deserve her thanks. Somehow, the outrage that she'd felt on finding him in here, mild though it admittedly was, has gotten lost on the way from the doorway to the chair.

She looks up at him, and finds him watching her. His eyes are a warm brown. She can't remember noticing the colour of his eyes before, or really thinking about it if she did notice, any more than she can remember seeing the concern that's showing so clearly in them right now. He's not just watching her now; he's looking back at her. They've never done this, just shared a long look, before today – or, at least, before last night. In the past, she's made a point to avoid meeting his gaze. But in the past, his gaze was cold.

He's the one who looks away, his eyes flicking down from her face and stopping, for just a moment, before moving on to take in the rest of her in a sweeping glance.

Jane looks away quickly, her cheeks flushing with sudden heat. The towel is still in a turban around her head, the bath sheet has only slipped down a very little since she wrapped it securely around herself in the bathroom. There's less of her on display than when she dresses for work in summer, but all she's aware of is too much bare skin.

"You brought down my things," she says, desperate not to let herself dwell on the look they just exchanged – her own part in it as much as his.

"I said that I would," he says, and his voice isn't quite as clear as it was a moment ago.

She chances a quick glance up at him, but he's looking over at the bed. Jane feels the tide of heat spreading along her neck now, and moving even lower It's a ridiculous reaction, when she _knows_ that he's looking at the things that have been placed on the bed rather than the bed itself, but she can't prevent it. She closes her eyes very briefly, concentrating on keeping her breathing slow and even.

"I wasn't sure exactly what you might wish to wear today, so I brought you a selection," he says.

Jane looks over at the bed, at all the items arranged in neat rows from one end of it to the other, and she has to admit that 'selection' is definitely the word for it. There are three different, almost identical, grey skirts and jackets lying side by side at the end of the bed. Next to them are three crisp white blouses with slightly differing collars. And then there are tights – a black pair and two different shades of grey to choose from – as well as a bra and a pair of once-white cotton panties, gone grey with many washings.

She tries not to think of her husband poking around in her room, in her closet, and most particularly not in her underwear drawer. There's nothing there for him to find, apart from the things that are now laid out before her on the bed – it's not as if she's an interesting enough sort of person to have so much as a trashy bodice ripper hidden beneath her neatly folded socks and bras – but somehow just the thought of him, seeing and touching and judging… Well, of course he will have found her taste wanting, won't he? There isn't as much as a lace edging on anything she owns. Her underwear screams dull practicality, just like its owner.

"If there's something specific that you require, all you need do is ask," he says, and Jane realises that she still hasn't said anything about the array of her possessions on the bed.

"No, no," Jane says quickly. "It's fine. This is more than enough."

He inclines his head. "I'll leave you to get ready, then."

He's almost at the door when he stops, and turns back to look at her. "You know that you need only call out if you require assistance."

"I know," Jane says. She manages not to colour up this time, but she also doesn't try to look him in the eye. She notes that he's wearing one of his pinstripe suits today. He's stopped to put the jacket on since she last saw him, complete with a pocket square to match his tie, a little touch of colour that hints at another, more flamboyant side to him. It's a side that she's still never seen, if it exists, but for the first time she can at least believe that that hint is not an out and out lie. There's more to her husband than first meets the eye: she knows that now, even if no one else in Storybrooke will ever see it. Her gaze moves on downward, following the classic slim line of the suit. It's a good look on him, all close-fitted and dark-hued…

Her eyes fly back to his face. He's watching her again, his eyes dark and intent.

Jane's breath catches in her throat. She swallows hard and says, "I'd better get dressed. I don't want to be late for work."

He doesn't say anything to that, but maybe there's the slightest hint of a smile on his lips when he turns and closes the door behind him.

Jane is left sitting in the chair, looking at a bed full of everything she might need, plus some things that she almost certainly won't need. She's not at all sure about the three pairs of socks, rolled in balls and set next to her tights. Why on earth would he think that she'd need one or the other, or both? She's never worn socks to work before.

Further up the bed is her brush and comb set with its matching hand mirror. She hardly ever needs to use the mirror under normal circumstances, but this morning it will prove invaluable, since she really doesn't want to make yet another trip down the hallway to the bathroom.

He's thought of everything. Jane shifts in place, and frowns. She can't help feeling unsettled at the idea of being the focus of all his attention even when she wasn't in the same room. She hadn't thought that he even knew where she kept half of this stuff, but he wouldn't have had much time to search and still get it all down here by the time she finished her shower.

There's no point in dwelling on it, though. It won't solve anything. All it will do is make her late for work – _later_ for work. Sighing, she reaches up and unwraps the towel from her head, letting her hair fall in damp, stringy tendrils over her shoulders and down her back.

Her hair dryer is lying on the bed – of course it is – so Jane starts with that. Bending down on one leg to plug it in proves to be something of a challenge – heaven forfend that anything in the house should be designed with convenience in mind – but soon enough she's sitting back in the chair and blowdrying her hair. It's a soothing, mindless sort of task, part of her normal morning routine, and Jane closes her eyes and just listens to the familiar whirr as the dryer does its job. She tries very hard not to think at all for a while.

Once her hair is almost dry, she combs out the knots and tangles, and then gives it a brisk brushing.

Dressing for work is going to be more time-consuming and awkward than undressing and getting into her nightdress was last night. She stands, letting the bath sheet drop to the floor, and casts a nervous glance over at the door.

He won't enter the room without her leave. Not while she's in here.

Probably not.

Unless she were to call for him. Then he'd come in at once. He said so. Which means that he can't be far away. Maybe he's just outside the door.

She could call his name, right now, and he'd come straight in here and see her like this.

Jane sits down with a thump, half-collapsing into the chair. Her cheeks are hot, all of her is hot, and all she can think about is the way he looked at her right before he left the room.

And the way she looked back at him.

He's not the only one who's changed in the space of a day. She doesn't know what it means. Part of her longs for the way things were before, when everything was predictable, even if it was also dull and vaguely disappointing.

The rest of her doesn't want that. The rest of her doesn't know what it wants.

Or maybe it does. Maybe that's the problem.

She's never—They haven't… bothered, not for a long time. They'd tried, back when they were first married, and it hadn't been bad. Not really. Not exactly. It had just been… dull. Boring. Like every other aspect of their marriage. Like every other aspect of _her_. It was her fault. She knows that. She'd tried, but she'd never quite been able to see what all the fuss was about. It was supposed to be fireworks, and instead it had been more of a damp squib. In the end, there was really nothing to be done about it. She was just one of _those_ women, the sort who simply wasn't interested in sex. She resigned herself to the fact, even before her husband gave up trying, and then continued on with her life without giving it much thought at all.

Until now.

And now isn't the time. She doesn't have time for any of this right now. She needs to get dressed and get to work.

Jane leans forward and grabs her undergarments off the bed. She puts on the bra first. It's plain white nylon, designed for support rather than display. Pursing her lips, Jane picks up her underpants. They're more utilitarian than the bra, if that's even possible. Shaking her head impatiently, she leans down and sets about the business of getting them on. It's an exercise in patience, but eventually she's standing there in her underwear, considering what to do about the next layer.

She ends up choosing the black tights and ignoring the socks altogether. She picks up the tights, wishing again that she had time to ice her ankle before going to work. Maybe she can do that once she gets to work. She could hide out in her office and prop her foot up, and cover it in cold packs. It might be possible, if Ashley can be relied upon to cope with the circulation desk on her own for twenty minutes.

Or, knowing Ashley, probably not.

Jane considers the tights: at least they're elastic enough to give a bit of support, a little like a compression bandage. She sets to work putting them on and tries not to wince as she eases the stretchy black fabric over her swollen ankle. It's still purple, but looking almost black in places, and aching dully despite the effects of the extra painkiller. 

Several awkward and occasionally painful minutes later, Jane finally gets her tights on properly. It feels like a greater victory than it actually is, especially considering that she's still only half dressed. Reminding herself firmly that 'nearly' doesn't count for anything, Jane grabs the nearest white blouse and starts turning herself into Mrs Gold in earnest.

In less time than it took to get her tights on, Jane manages to get fully dressed for work. Fully dressed, that is, apart from her shoes. And her hair. For some reason, her husband has failed to provide her with any shoes at all and her hair… well, she can't put that off any longer.

Her husband's provided her with a packet of new, unused hairpins from her drawer upstairs. She wonders about the ones she left in the hallway last night, and whether they're still there. She bites her lip, not wanting to revisit how she'd felt as she'd stared at herself in the hallway stand mirror and scattered hairpins right and left.

She's calmer now, much calmer, but somehow she can't bring herself to pick up the hand mirror even after she's twisted her hair into its customary chignon and pinned back every stray strand of hair that her fingers can find. She doesn't really need the mirror, though. She's done her hair this way so many times that she could do it with her eyes closed.

That's what she tells herself, anyway.

Jane puts her glasses back on, fastens her watch to her wrist, frowning a little as she notices the time, and hauls herself up and out of her chair. She hops over to the door and opens it. She half-expects her husband to be waiting right outside, but once again he's nowhere to be seen. She opens her mouth to call him – and, as if by magic, he emerges through the doorway to the dining room.

"I see that you managed by yourself," he says as he comes towards her.

"Almost," Jane says, trying to sound… She doesn't even know what she's trying to sound like. She gave up trying so long ago that she… well, she can't remember. "I need a pair of shoes."

"I brought them," he says, and points to an old-fashioned wood-framed swivel chair, standing next to the wall not far from the study door. There are several shoes sitting on the chair: all of them hers; none of them matching. Beside them are more pairs of socks, and these are most definitely _not_ hers.

Jane frowns. "I don't understand," she says, and instinctively braces herself for whatever he's going to say next. Admitting that she doesn't understand something always gives him the perfect opening to make her feel stupid.

"I don't think you should attempt to put a shoe on that foot today," he says, his voice as calm and low as ever, but without the slyly cutting undercurrent that she's come to know far too well. "Perhaps several layers of socks instead?" he suggests, and indicates the socks – _his_ socks – on the chair.

Jane's cheeks feel hot again, but not for the same reasons as before. Or mostly not. "That's not a bad idea," she agrees.

"And perhaps you'll allow me to help you this time," he says, glancing at the carriage clock sitting on a nearby occasional table.

"Oh, no," Jane says, flustered, and guilty at being the cause of not just her own lateness but his as well. "Uh, I can do it. It won't take me long. I got everything else on by myself, after all."

"You did," her husband says quietly. He's just looking at her, his eyes meeting hers, unwavering.

Somehow, she feels more self-conscious now than she did when he looked her up and down while she was dressed in nothing but a towel. She shifts in place, preparing to hop over to get the socks from the chair, but he beats her to it.

"Go and sit down," he says. "I'll bring these."

Jane would really prefer for him not to come into the room with her, but it seems pointless to argue about something so trivial, particularly when his suggestions make practical sense.

She hops into the room, and lowers herself into the desk chair, carefully and gently this time. She huffs as she realises that the socks on the bed are just out of her reach.

Her husband comes into the room, pushing the chair from the hallway before him. Wordlessly, he parks the chair opposite Jane and then goes over to the bed to collect the socks from there. He dumps them on the floor beside the chair, together with the other socks and the shoes.

He sits. "Hold out your foot?" he says.

It's a question, not a command.  She could tell him "no" right now and he'd leave her to it. They both know that. The husband she knew until yesterday never would have asked. But then, the husband she knew never would have looked after her like this, either.

Jane holds out her foot.

Her husband reaches down beside his chair and picks up a pair of white tennis socks. Jane can't remember the last time she played tennis. Has she ever…?

His fingers feel warm, even through her tights, as he gently clasps her foot and holds it in place before easing the sock on over her toes. His hands stroke along the sides of her foot as he pulls the sock around her heel and then gently, _gently_ up and over the sore ankle. He keeps hold of her foot after the sock is in place, stroking his fingertips from toe to heel and smoothing out the wrinkles.

At last he looks up at her. His eyes are dark, so dark that they look almost black.

Jane's mouth is dry. Her breath is so shallow she's half forgotten how to breathe at all. She has to force herself to take a deep breath, in through her nose and then slowly out of her mouth. Controlled. That's what she needs to be right now.

They both watch as he lowers her foot carefully back down, almost to the floor, before letting go of it, and then reaches down beside him for another sock.

"Black or grey?" he asks.

"Uh, I'm sorry?" Jane says. He hadn't taken the opportunity to make her feel stupid when he could have done so before, but she certainly feels stupid now.

"Black sock or grey sock?" he prompts gently. There's no mockery there, none of the weary, barely-veiled contempt she knows so well.

"Oh… Um, black. Black is good," Jane says, and something deep inside her finally relaxes enough to put herself properly into his hands, for this much, at least, if not for anything else. Not yet.

A slow smile touches his lips then. It's warm, that smile, like the touch of his hands, like the look in his eyes. It's warm, like Jane's husband never is.

It's warm, like Jane is right now.

Jane lifts her foot again, trembling slightly. She feels his hands tremble in turn as they enfold her foot and, at last, she smiles back at him.

She reminds herself to take another deep, slow breath.

His every movement is agonisingly slow and careful. Jane knows that this is the only way to get the socks on her foot without leaving her crying out in pain, but she's so aware – hyper-aware – of the gentle, lingering touch of his hands, of the warmth – _heat_ —in his dark eyes when he looks at her, of every single thing about him, that she can hardly bear it. By the time the well-worn black sock – one of Jane's favourites for wearing to bed in winter – is unrolled over the white sock, and then covered in turn by one of her husband's black and grey argyle socks, Jane is trembling, but no longer with anticipation. She needs the entire exercise to be over with. She needs space. She needs time to think without distraction.

She needs to get out of this house and go to work. It's a relief, almost a guilty relief, when at last he lets go of her foot.

"My shoe?" she requests.

It's his turn to look at her blankly, but only for a split second. He covers it well, reaching down beside his chair for the three odd shoes so unhurriedly that Jane can almost believe that he'd been intending to do so all along, even before she asked.

There's a black court shoe, and two others in different shades of grey. Jane selects the black one, and drops it on the floor, where she quickly slips it onto her foot.

Her husband is already standing when she finishes with the shoe. Once again, he's waiting silently at her elbow, a hand ready and waiting for her to grasp. She takes it, letting him bear most of her weight as she hauls herself out of the chair. His palm feels warm against hers, and she lets go of his hand quickly.

To her surprise, he doesn't accompany her to the door, but instead moves quickly ahead of her out into the hallway. Jane moves considerably more slowly. It's more difficult to keep her balance when hopping in a shoe, even a low-heeled court shoe, than it is to hop in bare feet.

Her husband is waiting for her just outside the door, she discovers when she stops to lean against it.

"I have something for you," he says, and holds out his cane.

Jane frowns. No, it can't be his cane, because he's still leaning on it, his fingers gripping its gold handle tightly. The cane he's holding in his left hand, offering to her, looks almost identical to the other, but it has a silver handle.

"I… I don't…" Jane says. Once again, he's reduced her to stuttering incoherency.

"It's a spare. I've never really had occasion to use it – and now you do."

"I… Thank you," Jane says, because there's really very little else that she _can_ say. She can hardly refuse it. She _needs_ it. And besides, she really doesn't want to refuse it. She doesn't want to start another pointless not-quite-argument with her husband and spoil this warm, fragile _something_ that's somehow sprung up between them. Not just for the sake of indulging herself when she's feeling unsettled and contrary and not quite right. She's not past that. She still doesn't feel quite right. But now she feels something else, too – something she'd much rather not dwell on right now.

She takes the cane, and her husband smiles, a small, pleased smile that vanishes almost as soon as it arrives. Jane grips the handle just as she's seen her husband do countless times before, and tries a short, experimental hop. It's easier with the cane, there's no doubt about that, even when wearing a shoe on her good foot. She grins, and tries another hop. And another. She's almost to the front door before she realises that her husband isn't following. She looks over her shoulder, and finds him still standing by the study door, watching her. His expression is grave, graver than she likes, and yet it's still not quite like any expression that should belong to the man who's been her husband all this time.

"Are you coming?" she asks, suddenly uncertain, and glances at her watch. It's getting on for eight o'clock. She's always out of the house long before now. Ashley will be wondering what's happened to her. "I need to get to work," she adds. She takes her bag down from the hook where she left it last night – _before_ —and at last she's truly ready to depart.

"As you wish," her husband says, nodding, and limps down the hallway to join her.

He opens the door and steps back to let her go out first. His ingrained, old-fashioned courtesy is clearly one thing that has not changed. He follows her out the door, locking it behind him, and they go out to face the world together for what feels to Jane like the very first time.


	2. Just Another Working Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to indiefic for the speedy beta.

Jane and her husband are silent in the car on the way to work. They've lost the art of meaningless domestic conversation, if they ever possessed it, and neither of them is used to spending time together – or with anyone – in such a small, confined space. Jane can't remember the last time her husband drove her to work. She can't remember the last time they drove anywhere together.

He's a more than competent driver, neither reckless nor cautious. Decisive, that's the word. His hands grip the wheel firmly, steady and assured. His nails are clean and trimmed short, and filed smooth around the edges, and his skin is smooth and lacking in callouses but, for all that, they're not really a businessman's hands. They're strong hands. Capable hands. They look like they would be skilful hands, too, given the appropriate task.

Jane feels she should look away, but she doesn't. He's sitting there, right there, next to her, close enough to reach out and touch her with those hands, if he weren't occupied with driving. Or close enough for her to reach out and touch him. She could do it, oh so very easily. She could reach out and touch his knee, stroke her fingertips along the fine woollen fabric of his trousers, rest her hand against his thigh, feel the real, living warmth of him against her palm, and-

Her husband glances her way as the car slows and turns a corner, and Jane looks hurriedly out the side window. She watches Storybrooke pass by, one familiar building after another, but she doesn't really take in the details. She's driven this route between the house and the library more times than she could begin to count. She knows every inch of it. It never changes. _Nothing_ ever changes in Storybrooke.

Well, almost nothing.

She stares fixedly out the window, her lips pressed together in a thin hard line. Suddenly, she can't bring herself to look at him properly, to meet his eyes and perhaps find that new, indefinable warmth lurking there. Even less can she bear the thought of looking him in the eyes and instead being greeted with the cold, familiar gaze of the husband she's always known.

But, most of all, she can't bring herself to look him in the eyes, because then he'll look _her_ in the eyes. He'll take one look at her and he'll see… what?

Jane doesn't know the answer to that, except that she can't bear the thought of him seeing it.

The car slows as they near the turn-off to the hospital, and Jane tenses. Last night she'd said she'd consider seeing a doctor on the way to work this morning, if her ankle hadn't improved. It isn't noticeably better. Not really. She _should_ see a doctor. That's the sensible thing to do. It's what her husband wants her to do, though, which makes Jane feel like opposing the idea just on general principle, even if he has been making a habit of being annoyingly right lately. Maybe especially because of that.

The car comes to a complete stop, and Jane's turning to look at her husband before she has a chance to remind herself that she's just decided not to do exactly that.

He returns her look with one of gentle enquiry, his eyebrows raised in a silent question, but he seems otherwise completely calm and unruffled. His expression is neither cold nor warm. It's tranquil. Contained.

"My dear?" he asks.

And there it is, the tipping point that she should have been expecting: two short words, making up the endearment that isn't. He's addressed her that way so frequently in the past that sometimes Jane's even wondered if he's forgotten her name.

The husband who calls her his dear is exactly the sort of husband to be wary of.

Jane looks out the window again, waiting for him to shut off the engine and get out of the car. She tenses as he shifts beside her – and then the car moves off again.

They pass the turn-off and Jane closes her eyes, feeling like a fool. The stop sign on the corner by the hospital: that's why he stopped. She passes that stop sign every single day. She _stops_ at it every single day.

She keeps looking out the window the rest of the way to the library.

Her husband pulls up right outside the library door. Without a word, he gets out of the car and hurries around to the passenger door, but Jane is already struggling out of the car before he gets there. She clutches the top of the door as she pulls herself up, ignoring the hand that, yet again, is waiting at her elbow. She applies herself to the task, and avoids his gaze.

In the space of ten minutes, they've somehow lost the tentative understanding that was building between them, all thanks to two little words, to the reminder that the husband she's always known hasn't gone anywhere. Jane's tempted to let herself believe that she imagined the connection or whatever it was that they were starting to find this morning back at the house, that she'd been reading things into the situation, that it was all just wishful thinking.

She's tempted to think that, but she doesn't, because she knows it's not true. Even if she imagined the expression in his eyes, she didn't imagine his actions. Her imagination simply isn't powerful enough to come up with something as unprecedented, as _unthinkable_ , as that.

She lets her husband get her bag from the car for her, and the spare cane, and then shut the car door behind her, but she doesn't allow him to help her to the library doors. She closes the short distance with only the cane for assistance, and pulls on one of the doorhandles, but the door doesn't budge. Jane's relieved about that, since it's still close to an hour until opening time. She hopes that it means that Ashley has already arrived and has remembered to lock the door after her.

Jane digs in the front pocket of her bag for the library key, trying hard to pretend that today's just like every other day, that she's not late, that she's not holding herself awkwardly on one foot, and that there's no silent, watchful husband lurking just behind her at all.

The clock in the tower above the library starts striking the hour. Jane's so surprised that she drops her keys. They clink against the pavement, but Jane's attention is on what's going on above her – not that she can see anything from here with the roof overhang in the way. She hops a few steps back towards the car, grabs onto one of the posts holding up the edge of the roof, and cranes her neck upwards. The clock is still striking – five, six, seven – and its hands are at eight o'clock exactly.

"I can't believe the clock's working," she exclaims as the clock strikes eight and falls silent.

"Since last night, I believe," her husband says, but he doesn't seem all that interested. He's not even looking at the clock. His eyes are focused on the ground in front of him. He pokes Jane's keys with the tip of his cane and flicks them up off the ground. He catches them effortlessly in his free hand and then finally comes over to join Jane.

"I can't remember it ever showing the right time before," Jane says, looking up at the clock face again.

"Well, no more than a twice a day, anyway," her husband quips.

Startled, Jane glances over at him. He catches her eye, and she has to bite her lip to stop herself from sniggering at the mischievous glint in his. _Then_ she has to keep biting her lip to stop her mouth from dropping open in surprise. They've never shared a joke together. Never.

Well, that's one more 'never' that Jane won't be able to say again.

The hint of a smile touches her husband's lips as he continues to watch her face, and the warm mischief hasn't faded from his eyes. The neutral expression that she saw there when she looked at him in the car before is gone, as though a veil has been lifted.

"I should go inside," Jane says, because that _is_ what she should be doing.

Still almost-smiling at her, her husband presents the keys to her with an extravagant flourish of one hand.

Jane takes the keys with a nod of thanks and hops back to the double doors. _Wary,_ she reminds herself. _I need to be wary._

The key turns in the lock, but opening the door turns out to be less straightforward. It's surprisingly difficult to pull the door open when it also means hopping backwards in a court shoe.

Her husband moves to her side at once. "Let me," he says, and pulls open the other door without giving her time to reply.

"Thank you," Jane says, all at once finding it much easier to feel the wariness she was looking for a moment ago, and hops in through the door.

She finds Ashley already inside, and in the act of making her lumbering way from the office area to the door. Ashley's blonde hair is pulled back into an untidy ponytail and she's wearing an unflattering, shapeless dress that does little to prevent her belly from resembling a rising moon.

"Mrs Gold!" Ashley says, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear as she comes closer. "I was just trying to decide whether to call you when I heard y-" She freezes, mid-sentence and mid-lumber, and stares at Jane with big, frightened eyes. Her eyes widen even more as they move from Jane's sock-swathed foot and take in the elegant ebony cane in her hand.

"I was held up at home," Jane says, trying to sound calm and matter of fact. The last thing she wants right now is to have to deal with one of Ashley's frequent bouts of tears. "But I'm here now, so there's nothing to worry about."

Ashley opens her mouth, but no words come out as Jane waits for her reply. Instead, Jane hears the door close behind her and she knows what Ashley must be looking at. She hears the sound of her husband's deliberate, if uneven, steps advancing towards her. He stops just behind her, so close that Jane half-fancies that she can feel his breath against the nape of her neck. Her breath catches in her throat, and she swallows hard as her face grows hot.

Her husband takes another step, and then he's standing by her side.

"Good morning, Ashley," he says quietly.

"G-good morning, Mr Gold." Ashley actually gets some words out this time but not, Jane thinks, because she's feeling calmer. If anything, she looks more scared than before – too scared _not_ to speak when spoken to by Mr Gold.

"As you can see, Mrs Gold has met with a slight accident. Perhaps you could find an extra chair so that she can prop up her foot?" It isn't really a question, or even a suggestion.

If Ashley could scurry right now, Jane's pretty sure that she'd be scurrying at high speed. As it is, she manages something a bit faster than a lumber this time.

Jane glances at her husband: he's watching with rather too much satisfaction for Jane's liking as Ashley drags the chair with the broken caster out of the corner.

"There's no need to frighten her," she says softly.

"I didn't," he replies. "I was perfectly civil. The girl has a vivid imagination. She frightened herself."

"You know what I mean," Jane says.

"It doesn't hurt to ensure that she makes herself useful," he murmurs, but he's not watching Ashley any more. He's watching Jane again.

"No," Jane says, too quickly. "I mean, yes. I mean… Please don't upset her."

Her husband looks at her consideringly for a moment. Assessingly. He looks a bit too much like Mr Gold the pawnbroker right then for Jane's comfort. And yet, somehow, even now he's not only that. It's disconcerting, seeing an echo of the new, private warmth lingering in his public face. Jane shifts in place, uncomfortable, and, not thinking, puts her foot on the floor.

The pain knifes through her foot and Jane lets out a short, sharp scream. She screws up her eyes against the pain and inhales sharply through clenched teeth, clutching on to the handle of her cane with both hands as she tries to keep her balance. Her husband's arms come around her from behind a split second before a loud clatter of something hitting the floor close by makes Jane jump. She staggers, her injured foot coming perilously close to the floor, and her husband pulls her close against him. He's trying to keep her from falling. She tells herself that, and keeps telling herself that, but all she's really aware of, apart from the slowly receding pain in her ankle, is the feel of his breath against her neck. _Hot_ against her neck. She's not imagining it this time.

"Mrs Gold?" Ashley calls out from the other side of the room. "Are you all right?"

"Of course she's not all right!" That's her husband's voice, considerably louder than usual and close enough to her ear to make Jane wince.

"I'm fine," Jane protests. "At least, I will be. I just need to sit down." Her ears are burning. She can't believe that she screamed, particularly since she hadn't even put much of her weight on her injured foot. She feels incredibly self-conscious for drawing attention to herself like that, and she also feels… not just self-conscious but _conscious_. Conscious of her husband's body pressed up close against her. Conscious of his hands on her. Conscious of Ashley's shocked stare from all the way across the room. "Please, I'm fine," she says again, a bit more determinedly this time. She wriggles, ever so slightly so as not to lose her balance, trying to give her husband a physical hint to let her go, since he doesn't seem to be heeding her words.

His breath catches and he tenses against her, his fingers digging into her skin through the fabric of her jacket.

"Please," Jane says, and this time he hears her. He must, because he releases his grip on her arms and steps back. Jane doesn't have time to feel relieved that he's no longer touching her, or even to decide whether she wants to feel relieved, before he moves to stand beside her and his arm comes around her. He draws her against his side, his arm a warm, steady weight across her back and his hand clasped lightly at her waist.

"May I borrow your cane for a moment?" he asks.

It's not what she's expecting him to say. She frowns, and shakes her head in puzzlement for a second, until his answering frown makes her realise that he thinks that's her reply to his question.

"Of course," she says, and hands it to him immediately.

"Thank you," he says. To her surprise, he doesn't let go of her. Instead, arm still around her, he turns the cane upside down and then, holding it near the tip, he reaches out with the handle and catches the handle of his own cane, which is lying on the floor beside them.

He dropped it, Jane realises. When he grabbed hold of her, he dropped his cane. Of course that's what caused the clattering noise. If she'd just thought about it a second or two longer after it happened, she would have realised what it was.

But she hadn't thought about it a second or two longer. She hadn't given it another moment's thought until now. It's not like her to be so easily distracted. But then, it's not like her husband to drop his cane, either. It's not like her husband to grab hold of her, or to touch her, for any reason. And yet, here they are.

Jane watches as her husband drags his cane along the floor by the handle until it touches the baseboard, and then pushes it up the wall. He does let go of her then, briefly, once the gold cane handle is high enough for him to catch hold of, but as soon as his cane is in his hand again, he returns her cane to her and his arm snakes back around her waist.

"Let me help you to your desk," he says, his words about as much of a suggestion as when he sent Ashley off to fetch the spare chair from the corner.

Jane wants to say no. She wants to tell him again that she's fine. She wants to be strong enough, brave enough, to hold her head high and make her way across the room without any assistance. But she doesn't do any of those things, and hates herself a little bit for that even as she lines her cane up beside her husband's and matches her gait to his. She's worn out and weary now, even though the day has hardly begun, and, more than anything, she just wants to sit down and put her foot up for a while.

They make it across the room to the little office area without incident. Jane's desk waits beyond the glass partition that does little to separate the office space from the main reading room. Not that Jane wants to be any more separate from the books than she has to be, even in the evenings when the library has closed for the day and she's staying back late with her paperwork. She doesn't usually want to be separate, anyway. Right now, she wouldn't mind some privacy. The most cowardly part of her wants to run and hide, but hiding's no more an option than running.

Ashley is waiting by Jane's desk, two chairs at the ready. She's been watching their progress across the room with wide eyes, but she refuses to look at either of them directly as they draw close. Jane's heart sinks. Spending the day in Ashley's company is trying at the best of times, and the scared glances and sulky downturn of Ashley's bottom lip make it very clear that this is most definitely not the best of times.

Her husband chooses that moment to remove his arm from around her waist, and Jane is suddenly left standing all alone. His hand is at her elbow almost immediately, but it's not the same as having his arm around her. She tells herself that that's a good thing.

She lowers herself into her desk chair with a sigh and reaches down with both hands to hoist her right leg up so that her foot can rest on the other chair. Her husband doesn't try to do that for her, thankfully, or to otherwise get in the way, but before Jane can think to ask, he's suddenly there in front of her. He grips the back of the spare chair and holds it steady until her foot is in place.

Then he inclines his head to her and, ignoring Ashley entirely, turns on his heel and leaves.

Just like that.

Without a word. Without looking back.

Jane is left staring after him, feeling stupidly, ridiculously disappointed as the library door closes behind him. Any other morning she would have got at least a "goodbye", and an air kiss, before the two of them left the house. Maybe that's the difference this time? That they're not at home? That there's someone else here to see?

That doesn't make any sense, though. He's just helped her across the room, and all but helped her into her chair, with Ashley looking on the whole time. His hands have been... well, not _quite_ all over her, but on her, intimate, and intruding into her personal space. All that attention would probably be unremarkable for any other husband in town, and any other wife. But to Jane it's new and strange, and private in a way that a cursory farewell and a kiss that doesn't even brush her cheek can never be. She-

"Mrs Gold?" Ashley says hesitantly. "Is there anything I can get you?"

Jane forces a smile. "That's kind of you, Ashley," she says. A refusal is on the tip of her tongue, because that's always her first instinct: never put anyone else out, never be any trouble, always fade into the background, into the shadows, as swiftly as possible – and stay there. "Could you go to Granny's and get me a coffee?"

The simple request feels like a victory, and all the more worth it to see the flash of surprise register on Ashley's face: she'd been expecting the refusal, too.

"And get a decaf for yourself while you're at it," Jane adds.

That makes Ashley roll her eyes, and shake her head and huff as well, all of the uncertainty of a moment ago gone in an instant. "I can't wait to be able to have a real coffee again," she sighs.

"Not long to go now," Jane says, mostly because she can't think of what else to say. Impending motherhood is not something she has experienced, or is ever likely to. She hopes she sounds reassuring.

Ashley's face clouds over. "No, not long now," she echoes, biting her lip and looking away.

Jane holds back a sigh, wondering what she said wrong. With Ashley, it never takes much, though.

"I'll go get the coffees," Ashley says quickly.

"Take the cost out of petty cash," Jane tells her. She digs into her bag to find the key to the wall safe, where they keep the petty cash box. She still hasn't found it when the sound of the front doors opening again makes her look up.

Her husband enters the library, his cane in one hand and, incongruously, a large wicker basket in the other.

"I thought you'd gone," Jane blurts out, even before he makes it across the room to the office area.

"Just for a moment," he replies, reaching her side and setting the basket down in the middle of the desktop. "Did you miss me?" he asks with gentle irony, one hand idly playing along the handle of the basket.

Jane's silent for a moment. More than silent. She's speechless, realising that she really doesn't know what the truthful reply to that question would be. "What's in the basket?" she asks instead, managing somehow to sound matter-of-fact.

"Simply a few things that I thought might come in useful," he says, reaching into the basket. He pulls out a couple of square blue-striped cushions that Jane doesn't recognise. "Lift up your foot," he tells her.

Jane does so, because to protest seems pointless. She watches, bemused, as her husband arranges the cushions carefully on the other chair. He's surprised her, yet again. She should have been ready for it, and yet she wasn't.

Her husband is reaching into the basket again. "Perhaps you could get me a chair, Ashley," he suggests quietly, without bothering to look up.

Ashley has barely moved since Jane's husband returned. She's been watching him with big eyes, and stiffens when he says her name.

"Ye-ah," she says, grabbing the back of her own chair and dragging it close to Jane's. Mr Gold never has to ask twice. For anything.

"Thank you, dear," he murmurs, the barest hint of amusement in his voice, as he takes a towel out of the basket. He pushes the chair a short distance, so that it's next to the other one, and sits down beside Jane's foot. He unfolds the towel and holds up one of the cold packs from the freezer at home for Jane to see. "You should ice your ankle," he says to her.

"Yes, I should," Jane agrees.

"Hold out your foot?" he asks. The question sounds much more casual now than it did when her husband last asked it back at home this morning, but the look in his eyes is anything but.

Jane's all too aware of Ashley looking on, so she quickly lifts her foot off the pile of cushions.

He takes her lower leg in his hands, holding it just above the ankle before he starts rolling the outer sock down and then over her ankle and heel. His touch is gentle – he's in no way rushing things – but it's nothing like as agonisingly slow as when he put the sock on her foot in the first place.

Jane's profoundly glad that Ashley didn't get to see _that_.

Once the sock is off her foot, her husband folds it in half and places it on the edge of Jane's desk. Then he starts on the second sock. He leans further forward than before, his attention all on what he's doing, and a lock of hair falls down in front of his face. He flicks it back and continues with his self-imposed task, his fingers curling under the edge of the sock and stroking along her shin as he rolls the sock down. He's touching her just as carefully as a moment ago, but now there's one less layer between his fingers and her skin. Jane's all too aware of the difference, or fancies that she is.

A quiet noise from the other side of the office, followed by a soft groan, has Jane darting a glance across at Ashley's desk. Ashley has seated herself awkwardly on the edge of her desk as she waits for Jane's husband to be finished with her desk chair. She's watching him remove Jane's sock, her mouth still turned down, but looking more resentful than scared now. Her gaze wanders, and she stares briefly up at the ceiling, almost as if she's rolling her… She _is_ rolling her eyes, Jane realises in surprise, and hastily focuses her attention back on her husband before Ashley catches her staring.

Jane's husband gets the second sock off her foot and places it on top of the first.

"Nearly done," Jane says, giving Ashley a brief smile.

"Yeah," Ashley says. She heaves in a deep breath that somehow doesn't quite turn into a sigh – mostly because, Jane realises, she's scared of Mr Gold noticing and deciding that she's sighing at him. Which, to be fair, would actually be the case, because Ashley's bored, and barely concealing it.

Jane bites her lip. It's disconcerting to realise that when Ashley looks at Jane's husband touching her foot – touching her at all – she doesn't see it for the wonder that it is to Jane's eyes. When they came in, Ashley was shocked to see Mr Gold helping his wife across the room, but no more shocked than to see him here at all. And, Jane suspects, no more shocked than she would have been to see him go out of his way to help anyone. When Ashley looks at them, together like this, what she sees is a dull old married couple, remarkable only because one half of the pair is Mr Gold.

Jane lets her head fall back against her chair, feeling suddenly old. Or – her eyes stray back towards Ashley – worse, middle-aged.

Her husband glances up. "Everything all right?" he asks. Concern creases his brow – or, at least, that's how Jane chooses to interpret it.

"Fine," she says, because there's really no useful way to answer that question.

"Good," he says, and slips the third sock off over Jane's toes. Her foot is left lying there on the seat of the chair, exposed, even though her entire leg is still covered by her tights.

Jane waits to see what her husband will do next. She glances over at Ashley, and finds her looking even more obviously bored than before. She's drumming her fingers very softly on the desktop beside her now. Jane decides that if her husband asks if he can help remove her tights next, she might even say yes.

He doesn't ask, though. Instead, he wraps the cold pack back in its towel and arranges it carefully against Jane's ankle. He gives it a satisfied little pat, and sits back in his chair.

"Done," he says.

"Thank you," says Jane. She can feel the cold seeping through, already starting to numb the ache in her ankle.

"I'll be going, then," he says, and grips tight on the handle of his cane as he gets smoothly to his feet. Jane's never fully appreciated until now how gracefully, and unobtrusively, he incorporates his cane into movements that by rights should be halting and awkward.

He comes over and leans down to bestow his usual morning air kiss of farewell and Jane… Jane doesn't want that. She leans up, clutching at his arm and pulling him down that little bit further, and claims a proper goodbye kiss.

It doesn't work out so well. Jane's aim is off, and her lips brush the corner of her husband's mouth, while the rim of her glasses presses hard against his cheek. She can feel his surprise in the tensing of his muscles, in the hard grip of his fingers as he grabs her shoulder to keep himself from losing his balance, and in the way he fails to kiss her back.

Jane draws back a little, enough to look him in the eyes. Maybe her kiss wasn't exactly welcome, but at least there's no sign of the cold disdain she was half-afraid of seeing in his eyes. Instead, they're wide with surprise, uncertain, and that's enough to provide Jane with a sliver of confidence. For the first time ever, she feels as though she's the one with the upper hand in one of their dealings. She raises her hand, so that she has the upper hand in truth, and lays her palm against his cheek. She feels his jaw tremble under her hand as she leans up again.

The next kiss is brief, barely more than a soft brush of her lips against his, but it's still better in every way. Jane's almost positive that she doesn't imagine the fleeting press of his lips against hers, returning the kiss before he ends it and steps back. Janes hand falls back into her lap. Her lips are tingling as she looks up at him, and she has to take a deep breath before she manages to get a word out.

"Goodbye," she says, her voice breathy and not sounding like Mrs Gold at all. She should probably say more, wish him a good day or something, but all she seems able to do is stare at him.

He stares back. The look in his eyes is still uncertain, still unsure – almost alarmed. His brow is furrowed in concern or consternation or... something. Whatever he may be feeling, it's clear that he's not particularly happy.

"My dear," he says at last.

Jane freezes. It feels as if the icy cold at her foot has suddenly washed up through her body. Why did he have to say that, out of all the words he could have chosen?

"No- I- Don't-" She can't find the right words, if they exist.

His expression doesn't really change, but his face goes so stiff and still that it looks like it's carved out of stone.

Jane tries again. "I didn't mean- Not-" She closes her eyes, clenches her hands, does her best to pull herself together. A moment later, she opens her eyes again and makes herself meet his gaze. "Don't call me that," she says quietly, steadily.

He relaxes infinitesimally at that. Probably, no one else would pick up on it, but it's enough for Jane to notice. There's a subtle change to his stance, and his face at least starts to look like it belongs to a living person.

"As you wish, _Jane_ ," he says in a low voice. He moves around her to the desk, and reaches into the basket to dig around in its depths. Jane can't imagine what else he might have hidden away in there, and, as it transpires, she doesn't get to find out now. He steps back from the desk without taking anything out of the basket, and when he turns to face her again he looks like himself, calm and collected and in control, just as Mr Gold always looks when he's in public. The man who trembled under her touch a moment ago, who froze when she said "don't", is nowhere to be seen. "Don't forget to take the ice pack off your foot in twenty minutes," he says, in the sort of voice that Mr Gold might use when advising a customer to remember to wind an antique clock regularly.

"Of course," Jane says.

"Until later, then." He studies Jane for a long, unnerving moment, and then turns abruptly to Ashley. "Goodbye, Ashley," he adds.

Ashley is still perched on the edge of her desk. She nearly jumps out of her skin at being addressed by Mr Gold. "Goodbye, Mr Gold," she squeaks.

Jane's pretty sure she's not imagining the hint of a smile on his face as he turns to leave. She watches the straight line of his back as he walks away from her, as unwavering as the pinstripe pattern of his suit, and notes the way in which the broad line of of his shoulders tapers down at his sides. He's all lines and angles. There's nothing soft about him. She needs to remember that.

The door closes behind Jane's husband. She keeps looking at it for a moment, until Ashley gets up and goes to retrieve her chair from beside Jane.

Jane drags her attention from the door back to her desk, trying to pull herself together and make a start on the working day. Her bag is still lying there, next to the wicker basket. "We should get those coffees," Jane says, and reaches for her bag. This time, it doesn't take her long to find her keys. "Open the safe and bring me the petty cash box," she tells Ashley.

Ashley nods, and takes the keys. She no longer looks bored. Jane hopes it's just the prospect of free coffee that's put that gleam in her eye.

Ashley's surprisingly fast on her feet this time, and returns with the cash box before Jane has a chance to do more than consider how she's going to work at her desk with her chair turned to the side so that her foot can rest on the chair opposite. Jane unlocks the cash box, and takes out a dollar note.

Ashley frowns. "Are you sure that will be enough?"

Jane raises her eyebrows in surprise. "I'd think so. Granny usually charges me forty cents for my coffee. Decaf can't be more than half as much again, surely." Perhaps Jane's as soft as her husband's often claimed, though, because she takes another bill out of the cash box and presses it into Ashley's hand. "Get yourself a pastry or something as well," she says.

Ashley smiles, the first proper smile Jane can remember seeing on her face in… well, too long. "Thank you, Mrs Gold!" she exclaims, clutching the money to her chest.

It's the first 'thankyou' that Jane can remember receiving from her in… well, just as long. Ashley's always claimed that things are 'okay' when Jane's asked how she's doing. Jane's never pursued it further, but now she wonders just how tight Ashley's financial situation really is.

"Go on, then," Jane says, waving her off towards the door. "Just take the cash box back to the safe before you leave."

Ashley doesn't need any further encouragement. A minute or so later Jane is watching the front doors close again. And then there's silence.

Jane looks around the library, taking in the sight of shelf after shelf of her beloved books, of the circulation desk, of the banks of card indexes. All quiet. All silent. She's alone, properly alone, for the first time in what feels like forever, but it was only last night that she was last here, working back late, as alone as she is now. Just last night. Not even an entire day ago.

It feels as if all the days she's spent here happened to a different woman. Or that _she's_ the different woman, anyway, gifted with the memories of the stranger who used to work here. The other woman was here last night, working her way through a pile of paperwork. Bored, but not really noticing that she was bored. Not really content, either, but used to her life, to who she was and the role she occupied, in public and in private, and resigned to nothing ever changing. That's who she'd been, right up until she'd locked up and gone out to her car last night.

Suddenly, her awareness of it, of her life, of her _self_ , had crowded in around her. Unbearable. Suffocating. It had been all she could do to drive home and not just jam her foot down on the accelerator and keep going until she hit the town limits – or hit something more tangible, perhaps.

Jane looks across at her computer monitor, all blank and lifeless. She doesn't want to dwell on how she felt last night. There's no point. She'd come home to a husband who wasn't her husband. It was just as well, considering that she was no longer the woman who'd been his wife. What does that make them? Strangers?

No, not that, either.

Jane doesn't know what they are to each other, except that they're not _nothing_. The two of them together makes something. Whether it's good, bad or indifferent… Well, good or bad, only time will tell. They're not indifferent. No. Indifferent is a word that belongs to _before_.

But Jane doesn't want to dwell on this. She looks at her computer monitor again. She can't even reach it to turn it on until she gets her husband – or at least his basket – out of the way. She has to twist around awkwardly to grab the basket by its handle, but she manages it, just. She pulls it into her lap, and investigates the contents. She's slightly disappointed to find very little inside, and even less that's of much interest. There are several more cold packs, wrapped in towels – those will need to go into the tiny refrigerator out the back when Ashley returns if they're going to be of much use – and a spare pair of socks. His socks.

Jane leaves the basket on the floor beside her and turns on her computer. She closes her eyes while she waits for the computer to boot up, tired before she even starts. Her head feels heavy, and so do her arms. It's not like her to feel tired for no reason, though maybe pain and exertion aren't the best combination. Or with heavy duty painkillers added into the mix. Of course that's what it is. She took one not long before she left the house, and now it's kicking in.

The computer's up and running when Jane forces her eyes open again. She twists in place so that she's facing the screen, but the position's too awkward to maintain for any length of time. Jane winds up tilting the screen towards her and balancing the keyboard on her lap. This position is also pretty awkward, and would probably make someone versed in ergonomics shudder in horror, but it's good enough for her purposes. There are some new accessions on the desk, waiting to be catalogued. They're second hand and well worn, donations all, like every other book that seems to end up in Storybrooke Library. Jane reaches for the book on the top of the pile, props it open at the title page, and starts typing.

By the time Jane finishes entering the details of the first book on the system, her head's spinning and it's hard to focus on the screen. Those painkillers really pack a punch. She wonders, a little resentfully, why they never seem to affect her husband's faculties. Or maybe they do, and he just doesn't let it show. It's exactly the sort of thing that he might do, now that she comes to think of it. Her husband isn't one to let weakness show, or even ordinary human frailty.

She lets the cover of the book fall closed, but she doesn't reach for the next one in the pile. Ashley should be back with the coffee soon, so there's no real point in starting on another. She pushes the book to the side of the desk, out of the way, and returns the keyboard to its place in front of the monitor. Her wedding ring catches the grey morning light as she moves her hand, glinting dully. It's almost a surprise to see it on her finger. She hardly ever notices that it's there. She hadn't even remembered it last night, when she was contemplating her reflection in the mirror and flinging hairpins right and left. It hadn't occurred to her that maybe it was her wedding ring that she should have been flinging.

Jane holds her hand up and considers the ring: it's nothing special or eye-catching; just a plain band of gold. Gold for Gold. It's a poor joke, and not one that anyone's ever dared make in her hearing. It's true, though. Her husband likes using gold as a mark of ownership, whether it's the handle of his favourite cane, or the gilded vases back at the house that never hold flowers, or his wife's wedding ring.

She puts her hand down on the edge of the desk without removing the ring, and is aware that that's a conscious decision, though she's not entirely sure what the decision means. Maybe it isn't about wearing the ring but about _not_ taking it off. For now.

She's still looking at the ring when she hears the main doors open. "I was beginning to wonder what had happened to you, Ash-" She looks up and is surprised into silence. It's not Ashley. "Dr Whale," she says, trying to find her professionally polite librarian's voice. "I'm sorry, the library isn't open yet. Perhaps you'd like to come back after nine. I'll be happy to help you find whatever you're looking for then."

Dr Whale smiles – or, rather, his smile broadens. He's a man whose face is rarely without at least a hint of a smile. It's meant to be reassuring, Jane supposes; a sign to his patients that he has everything under control and so there's no need to look completely serious. It's a sign of something else entirely when he turns that amused little smirk on any and all of the younger women in town.

He's never smiled at her like that; Jane can't quite shake the feeling that he's not so secretly laughing at her.

"I don't need a book," he says, making his way across the room to her desk without haste. Whatever has brought him here, it's not an urgent matter. "I came to see you, actually, Mrs Gold."

"Oh," Jane says.

"I was informed that you'd met with an accident." He stops beside her and looks down at her foot, resting on the pile of cushions with the cold pack still tucked against it. "And I see that my informant was correct."

"Yes, I did slip on the front path at home last night," Jane agrees, trying to keep her voice even. She knows exactly who the doctor's informant must have been. "It's probably just a sprain. I've taken some painkillers and iced it. It's fine."

"Probably," the doctor says, nodding. "But since I'm here, perhaps I should take a look at it, just to make sure there's no more serious damage."

"Thank you, but there's no need," Jane says. She's still trying to sound calm, or at least civil, but something of her inner feelings must have shown through in her tone, because Dr Whale stops smiling completely.

He leans down closer. "There is need," he says in a low, panicky voice. "Please. Your husband won't be happy if I don't examine your foot."

Jane sighs. No, of course he won't be happy. And in Storybrooke, there's very little worse than the possibility of Mr Gold's displeasure – apart from the reality of it, of course. Mrs Gold's displeasure, on the other hand… well, the possibility of that isn't going to leave anybody quaking in their boots. Not if the source of her displeasure is something that Mr Gold has 'requested'.

"All right," she says, slumping in her chair. She knows that seeing a doctor is the sensible thing to do, that it was mainly just unreasoning stubbornness that had her holding out so long, but it still feels like she's giving in. Giving up. Going back to being the little grey mouse of a librarian that she's always been, and the little grey mouse of a wife, too.

The smile returns immediately to Dr Whale's face. "If you wouldn't mind taking off your stockings, Mrs Gold? Then we can get this over and done with."

"Of course," Jane says. She's relieved when Dr Whale turns his back to give her at least the illusion of privacy. After last night and this morning, Jane is becoming something of a reluctant expert on putting on and taking off tights while sitting down in a chair with one foot held out above the floor. However, this time the task proves more difficult. She wriggles in place as she pulls the tights down, and her chair rolls back. Her foot slips off the cushions, and it's all Jane can do to keep it from hitting the floor. She clutches the edge of the desk, panting after the near miss. She's annoyed with herself, and with the chair and its stupid casters, and most especially with her husband, for putting her in this situation at all.

"Do you need some help?" Dr Whale asks.

Jane glances up. The doctor's turned around and is looking down, his eyes quickly meeting hers. She half-wonders where his eyes were before she looked up. He's the sort of man who rarely passes up the opportunity to look a woman over. But why would he want to look at her? She's hardly the type that draws men's eyes. She's not all that young any more, and she was never pretty. Half the time, people don't notice that she's there at all.

"Could you hold the back of the chair steady for me?" Jane asks.

"No problem," Whale replies, moving around behind her.

It's easier to wriggle out of her tights now, and probably doesn't take any longer than it did last night, but Jane's terribly self-conscious of how slow and awkward the whole process is. She doesn't like being the focus of anyone's undivided attention at the best of times, and this is hardly the best of times.

"Let me," Whale says once Jane gets her tights almost as far as her knees. "We need to be gentle with that ankle of yours." He pushes the spare chair out of the way and squats down before her.

Jane holds out her foot, determinedly _not_ thinking about husbands or socks, and the doctor slides one leg of her tights over her knee, and then does the same for the other.

The door bangs open, and Ashley enters the library, bearing two extra-large takeaway coffees on a cardboard holder, and clutching a slightly crumpled paper bag under her arm.

"I'm back!" she announces brightly. "I got some half-moon cookies as well as the coffee. Would you like me to put them…" Ashley's voice trails off as she approaches the office area and catches sight of Dr Whale.

"Just give me my coffee, and keep the rest on your desk for now," Jane tells her.

"Okay," Ashley says. She's addressing Jane, but she's looking at Dr Whale speculatively, in a way that makes Jane want to squirm – or, better still, find a dark corner and simply hide for a while. "Hi, Dr Whale," Ashley adds, as she absently hands Jane her coffee.

"Good morning, Ashley," Dr Whale says, flashing one of his patented smiles at her, but he doesn't get up. Instead, he turns back to Jane. "Now if you'll just lift your foot a little more, Mrs Gold? That's right. And now the other." He slips the tights off over her toes and hands them to her, then gets up to push the spare chair back so that Jane can rest her foot on it.

Jane sips her coffee, focusing on the cup in her hands, feeling the warmth of the coffee through the cup's paper sides. Granny always makes it scalding hot, so it's still good and warm now, even if, as seems likely, Ashley's taken the long way back. Jane keeps looking at her cup as Dr Whale asks Ashley if he can borrow her chair while he takes a look at Mrs Gold's foot, and keeps looking at the cup some more as Ashley settles down on the edge of her desk with a huff.

It doesn't take long for Dr Whale to examine her foot. He shakes his head disapprovingly as he takes in the full extent of the bruising, and gets her to wiggle her toes. Then he takes Jane's foot in his hands and feels his way around the heel and ankle joint. The gentle pressure of his fingers is still enough to make Jane cry out. She almost spills coffee down the front of her blouse.

"I don't think it's broken," Dr Whale pronounces as he gets up. "But you'll need to get an X-ray done to be completely sure." He raises his eyebrows in a silent question.

"Now?" Jane asks with a sigh.

"Now would be best," the doctor says, laying a hand against her to stop her trying to get up. "Just wait where you are. I brought some crutches with me in case they were needed."

"Okay," Jane says. She watches over the rim of her coffee cup as Dr Whale walks briskly across the reading room and out the door onto the street.

"Cookie?" Ashley asks.

Jane turns to find the bag of cookies being held out to her.

"No. No, thank you," she says, shaking her head. "Will you be able to take care of things here until I get back? I hope I won't be too long, but… well, it's a hospital, so I might have to wait around for a while."

"I'm sure they won't keep _you_ waiting long, Mrs Gold," Ashley says. "Don't worry. I'll be fine." But she smiles a little sadly as she says it, and sighs as she takes a cookie out of the bag.

"Is everything all right, Ashley?" Jane asks, setting her coffee down on her desk. The girl doesn't generally confide her problems, even if she does like to air every little annoyance in exhausting detail, but the gossip in town about her is loud enough that a whisper of it has even reached Jane's ears.

"It's just…" Ashley looks at Jane, and then away, and then back at Jane, biting her lip. "Nothing. It's nothing," she says.

Jane's even more concerned by the flat out denial. That's not Ashley's way when she gets that look on her face.

The library doors open again, and Dr Whale returns, a pair of crutches under his arm. He smiles at Jane encouragingly, and Jane is tempted to smile back, but the smile freezes half-formed on her lips as her husband follows Dr Whale into the library. He's watchful, his eyes darting to Ashley and then Dr Whale before finally resting on Jane.

Jane looks back at him for a heartbeat, two, and then very deliberately away. She smiles at Dr Whale, who blinks at her in obvious and unflattering surprise, taking a moment to find his own, usually ever-ready, smile.

"Thank you," she says as Whale sets down the crutches, leaning them against the end of Jane's desk.

"Any time," Whale assures her, a little too hastily. He, like Jane, is clearly all too aware of her husband, standing silently a few paces behind him.

"I hope I won't be needing crutches again after this," Jane says, smiling just a little to take the sting out of her words.

"No, of course not," Whale says even more quickly. His smile looks slightly sickly now. "Here, let me help you up and I'll adjust them for you."

The doctor holds out his hand for Jane to take, but before she can do more than reach out her hand, her husband is suddenly there right next to them, almost breathing down their necks. Jane gets the distinct feeling that he'd be standing between them if there was space.

"Or perhaps Mr Gold would prefer to help you up, Mrs Gold," Whale suggests nervously as he moves out of the way – or perhaps it would be more accurate to say 'out of range'.

Jane's husband holds out his hand to her.

She doesn't take it. "You sent Dr Whale," she says flatly.

"I did," he says, his expression unreadable. "You needed to see a doctor."

There are so many things that Jane wants to say in response to that, but she's conscious of Ashley's eyes on them, and the doctor determinedly not looking their way as he fiddles with the adjustments on the crutches.

Jane lifts her foot carefully off the chair, and takes her husband's hand. His hand is warm, warmer than hers, and his grip is firm and dependable. She lets go again as soon as she's standing up.

"Let's see if these are the right height," Dr Whale says, picking up the crutches and bringing them over to her.

Her husband has little choice but to take a step back while Jane tries out the crutches. They require a few more slight adjustments, but before very long Jane is testing them out, taking herself from one end of the office area to the other and back. It's still slow going, but nothing like as slow as hopping, and much less likely to jolt her foot.

Jane lowers herself back into her chair – a little tricky, until she realises she needs to dispense with the crutches first – and reaches for her socks. She's not even going to try to get back into her tights right now. As it is, getting the socks on turns out to be beyond awkward, trying to hold up her foot in a way that allows her to bend down and reach it without pushing her skirt right up to her thighs.

She finally glances her husband's way.

"May I help at all?" he enquires. He's all cool tranquility, or at least his voice is. His white-knuckled grip on the handle of his cane says something quite different.

"Yes, please," Jane says.

He borrows Ashley's chair again – she's still perched on the edge of her desk, anyway – and takes her bare foot in his hands. He doesn't waste any time in getting the task done. He's brisk, almost clinical, as he pulls each sock up and over her toes, heel and ankle. When the last sock is in place he doesn't linger. He's up on his feet again and waiting beside her with his hand ready for her to grasp before Jane even has a chance to thank him.

He's the one who lets go of her hand as soon as she's standing this time.

She turns to Ashley. "You've got my number. Call me if anything comes up that you're not sure about. Anything at all."

"Yes, Mrs Gold," Ashley said.

"I'll call and let you know once I have a better idea of how long I'm going to be."

Ashley nods.

Jane stuffs her tights into her bag and then loops the leather strap over her head so that it winds up lying across her body. This way, her bag shouldn't get in the way every time she leans forward on the crutches.

Her husband is waiting nearby, silent again. Jane would like to think that he's feeling at a bit of a loss now that she has her crutches and no longer has need of his arm to lean on. She'd like to think that, but he's showing no sign of discomfiture. He looks like Mr Gold, and yet… not quite, somehow. Maybe it's just wishful thinking. Maybe not. Jane doesn't know what to think – apart from the fact that she's still annoyed with him for fetching the doctor without even asking her first.

That thought buoys her on across the room to the door. Jane looks around when she gets there to find her husband and Dr Whale trailing along in her wake. She waves a goodbye to Ashley, who waves back, while she waits for them – and for someone to open the door for her. Her husband looks at Dr Whale – just _looks_ at him for a fleeting moment – and Dr Whale all but sprints forward to get the door.

Jane moves quickly past the doctor, frowning down at her foot as she concentrates on manoeuvring her crutches. She can't approve of such tactics, even though she can't deny that her husband's fearsome reputation is proving useful to her right at this moment. She's too used to being on the wrong side of his cold stare.

"Thank you, Dr Whale," Jane says quietly as he follows her husband out through the door.

He quirks one side of his mouth into a wry little grin. It looks less false than his usual smile.

The breeze is cool on Jane's bare legs out on the street. Jane glances across the street as she waits by the kerb for her husband to open the passenger door of his Cadillac, and notices Dr Hopper standing there, talking to the mayor. They're both staring up at the clock tower. Without any warning, the mayor shifts her gaze, and looks straight across at Jane with cold dark eyes.

Jane shudders and looks away quickly, telling herself that it's only the breeze making her shiver. As soon as she finishes the thought, she wants to roll her eyes. Somehow, lying to herself never really works out. Jane doesn't like the mayor, and she knows that the sentiment is more than mutual. She's never been able to understand quite why the mayor dislikes her so much, though. Mayor Mills and Jane's husband are rivals of a sort, so of course she and Jane were never going to be friends, but in truth they barely know each other. It's hardly a basis for such an intense and personal dislike, and yet the mayor never fails to shoot Jane a poisonous look or make a cutting comment whenever she sees her.

Her husband clears his throat, and Jane realises that he's waiting by the car door. She nods her thanks to him when he takes her crutches as she gets into the car. Once she's settled, her husband opens the back door, and Jane's slightly surprised to see Dr Whale get into the back seat along with the crutches.

Her husband didn't just send Dr Whale to her, Jane realises; he _brought_ him.

She's not sure what to say as her husband opens the door and gets into the driver's seat. There's very little that she _can_ say, with Dr Whale sitting right behind them. She looks over at her husband uncertainly, feeling that she should at least say something, but he's looking out the window. He's looking over at the mayor, and the mayor is looking right back.

In the end, Jane doesn't say anything. In the end, Jane settles for silence, even after her husband turns the key in the ignition and drives off. In the end, Jane hates herself, just a little, for her lack of courage.

In the end, she just lies back against the seat and lets her husband take her where he will.


End file.
